Sunken Daisies
by AbbyCadabra
Summary: Cordelia's sinking... Post RoF/AN, crossover, slash (C/B), C/A


**TITLE**: Sunken Daisies (the daisy represents innocence, and I'm sure you can take it from there...)  
**EMAIL**: YankeesNAbercrombieChick@hotmail.com  
**RATING**: A hard R for sex (though not graphic) and language  
**SPOILERS**: occurs the day after RoF  
**PAIRING**: C/B, C/A  
**FEEDBACK**: Yep, I definitely love it.

**DISCLAIMER**:  Characters from BTVS and AtS are not mine… blah blah blah…

**DISTRIBUTION**: Uh, don't really care, but it'd be nice to know where.  
**NOTES**: This was originally written as a Secret Valentine, and as a C/A fic. This is a different version from the original fic, "Valentine's Day, Shaken, Not Stirred."  
**NOTES(2)**: How about for my sanity's sake we just say that Cordy knew that Angel saw her and Connor do the nasty, rather than her finding out the next ep, hmmm?  
**NOTES(3)**: Yeah, I tend to ramble. Anyway, this is my first time with F/F slash, and only my second with NC-17, so if it sucks, leave me a message about how to get better, kay?

There have been a lot of things running around in my mind lately.  And do I ever mean a lot.  There's Angel.  Connor.  The end of the world.  Fucking Connor—something that only existed for less than five minutes.  But the most dominant thought at this moment is _not_ how much Buffy's hair looks just like mine did around the time Pylea and I met for the first time.

But rather, does the cut look better on her than it did on me?

Our faces are shaped very differently.  I'm a heart and she's… well, I don't know.  A triangle?  Actually, it's more funnel shaped.  All triangle until her chin, where it really dips down.  And that sounds absolutely horrible, but I'm doing the best I can.

But that's really not the point.

Certain haircuts only look good on certain face shapes.  This is a rule.

And Buffy looks good.  Really good.  With _my_ haircut.

I touch my hair, feel the choppy ends, and tell myself it shouldn't matter if Buffy looks better in a haircut I had two years ago because I've moved on.  Darkened the color, changed the part, angled the ends—_changed_.

And the Buffy I'm looking at right now is the same girl she's always been.  Small but strong, merciless but honest, wounded but still a hero.  Always the hero.  No longer just Little Miss Likes to Fight, but now Little Miss Likes to Save the World.

And, hey, I'd like to save the world once.

Speaking of—

"Raining fire?  No, we haven't had anything like that," Buffy says.  There's a murmur, a faint slip of her lips, and a painfully sincere, "Thank God," escapes and I don't think I was meant to hear that.

I let the thoughts of hair and superheroes and world annihilation fall away, until all that's left is me, seated tiredly on an obscenely yellow plastic booth, Styrofoam cup of hot coffee fastened within my too thin fingers.  I wanted black coffee, without frills or thrills, continuous and deep.  The cup is pure white and dented, bending around the cusp and did it come this way or did I do that?

This isn't my choice way of spending a Saturday night, I admit.  There are more romantic places to get a cup of coffee than the Doublemeat Palace, but Buffy insisted that she could get us a discount, and I don't currently have the budget necessary to object.  But the bitter water—and that's pretty much what it is—is warm in my hands and hot on my tongue, and that's all I care for right now.

"Cordy," Buffy calls, almost as if for the second or even third time.  And who knows, maybe it is.

I look up, maybe vulnerable, maybe intimidating.  I'm not sure.  Not sure of much.

"Yeah?"

She leans over, closer, looks at my hand and I know she's considering taking it into her own.  But she doesn't, and a split second later those green eyes are on me again, and I don't have time to wonder if I wanted her to take my hand or not.

"What are you doing here?"

The words are sharp, but everything else about Buffy at this moment isn't.  The eyes, the corners of her lips, her relaxed, open posture, and her hand, resting on the table so close to mine.  All so soft.

"I… I'm not sure."

I hadn't meant to say that.  Hadn't meant to fuck Angel's son either, but shit happens.

She's quiet for a long time, her fingers drumming almost soundlessly on the white plastic table, speckled with black—thump thump thump and thump, and start again.

"Is this about Angel?"

Yes and no.  But I can't tell her that.

"What do you mean?"

"Did Angel send you here?"

"No."

She falls quiet again, her gaze breaking away from mine after holding it an instant too long.  It's too late, and she's seen the raw misery in my eyes, reflected from somewhere deep inside of me.  Things are uncomfortable now.  She fidgets.  The cup in my hand is no longer warm, but rather just there, without temperature.

I'd like to say something.  Ask her how things are going, how her—

"I know about you and Angel," she blurts suddenly, her eyes capturing mine for not a moment before darting back to nothing in particular.

Me and Angel?  I want to laugh at her.  Tell her all about how absurd that idea has become within the last twenty-four hours, about how I fucked it all up by fucking, and then maybe I'll have someone to laugh with.

Then I think again: me and Angel?  And I want to cry.

She mistakes my grief for confusion and explains quickly, "Wesley.  He keeps in touch with Giles.  And Giles tells me everything.  I know all about you and Angel, and Connor, and Fred and Gunn and Wesley."

She says our names as if she knows us.  As if she had been there—_with _us—all these years and has the goddamn right.  Like she was there when Gunn stood outside my hospital room throughout the night as a favor, or when Angel's dreams were ravaged by his sire, or when Wesley became the man his father had always expected him to never be, or when Angel found out he was going to have a son, or when Connor was born or when Connor was stolen or when I fucked Connor on a dirty mattress, between dirty sheets.

_(It's not you, baby. It's not you. Not you.)_

…And what rights do _I_ have now?

I don't react to Buffy's admission, just lower my head.  My eyes roam over the table, past the neatly stacked packets of fake sugar, the ketchup bottle, the paper placemats, before settling on her small, still hand.  So close to my own that I can feel the heat and imagine its smoothness.  This is the hand that touched Angel in places I'll never know, the hand that sent him to hell, the hand that has seen heaven.  I'm suddenly torn as to whether I would rather caress this hand or slice it off of her.

"What do you know?" I snap suddenly.  The venom in my voice, springing from a place I was sure had been washed away along with the remnants of Connor, surprises even me.  "You think you know, Buffy?  You don't know shit.  You don't know Angel, or Connor, or Gunn or Wes or Fred, and you sure as hell don't know _me_," I hiss.

"But I do know you, Cordy," she says, calm in the face of my fury.

She stares into my eyes, so noble and sacrificing and goddamn smug, resolve twisting her simple features into a mask that shouts, 'I'm right.'  And I almost want to believe her.  Almost take her hand and clutch it between my fingers until my knuckles are white.  Almost beg her to make me better, oh god please make all of it better.

"I know.  I can see it all over your face, and in your eyes."  Her gaze flicks over my face, past my nose and chin and lingering a second on my lips, and then back to my eyes.  "You're sinking.  Swamped under God-knows-what, and losing control."  She sighs, but it's so much more, I can tell.  Her shoulders slump with the deep loss of air, and she looks away.  "I know what you're going through because I went through the same thing.  Last year, I… sunk."  She looks at me again.  "But keep swimming, Cordy.  You have to keep going."

Her words seem to catch in my own throat, trapped there with tears I won't shed in the light.  She's right, and oh how very right, but the truth isn't in her words.  It's the look on her face, the lines of worry that mar her twenty year old skin, the hand resting beside mine, the honesty that wraps itself around her voice and devours the doubt.  It's _Buffy_.  The stunted hero, savior of imperfection.

I don't see it, don't see anything other than the jaded green truth of her eyes, but the sudden warmth over my right hand tells me that she has moved her hand that fraction of an inch and covered my own with it.

The feel of her hand is exactly as I had imagined it to be.  Soft and rough and gentle and hot, so fantastically hot.  I want to flip my hand over, meet hers palm to palm, and explore every inch of her skin with my fingertips.  The peaks and valleys of her knuckles, the crevices between each finger, the blunt ends of her fingernails and I want it all right now and without any fucking explanation.

Her eyes soften and something else…  Something I can't name flashes to life far beyond her irises and then I hear her voice, soft as her hand, saying, "I know what to do make you forget, Cordy.  I can… make you feel something that isn't despair."

Her hand, the one resting on mine, twitches, almost in a caress, and oh god I get it now.  No, Buffy, I should say.  Nonono, you're Buffy and I'm Cordy and no and this is what fucked me up in the first place and oh god why do I want to so badly—Nonono—

"Yes," I hear myself breathe out.  "Just… make it go away.  I don't want to… Yes."

The trip from Doublemeat Palace to her house—her mother died right there, right there on that couch—seems to go by in the blink of an eye, and the next thing I know I'm staring at the couch her mother died on while Buffy rips open my cheap top, buttons flying at my face and her face and everywhere else, hitting the hardwood floor with a distant rattle.

I should be questioning where the other seven or so people who occupy this house are, whether they'll barge in through the door I'm leaning on while Buffy sucks on my shoulder at any minute, but all I can do is feel.  Her lips wetting my skin, teeth pulling the strap of my cotton, Wal-Mart bought bra to the side and then the lips again on my—Oh god, her mother died _right there_.

"Your room," I say, pushing away from the door and against her, every part of her touching every part of me, soft and smooth and supple.

I feel her nod against my flesh, and we drag each other up the stairs, hands tangled in hair of gold and copper, lips pressed against lips and skin and quickly removed clothes.  I breathe out and she swallows my air, refusing to separate her lips from any part of me.  She stands back and strips off her shirt.  The burst of cold air that strokes my bare abdomen is agonizing and sends chills coursing over my spine until they reach the tips of my toes and the nails of my fingers.  Her heat covers me from the cold once again as she crushes her lips to mine almost brutally and wraps her arms around me.

"Are you sure?" she asks breathlessly without pausing her hands' exploration of my skin.

I nod against the crook of her neck, inhaling the scent of vanilla and I wonder if she tastes like vanilla too.

She stops and becomes rigid.  "You have to be sure."

"I'm sure," I say, gripping her smaller body closer to mine and flicking my tongue out and, no, not vanilla, but better.  Strawberries.

I must have finally convinced her because she melts back into my arms.  The pressure on my breasts is abruptly gone and Buffy's neck disappears from my mouth and is that _my_ bra hurtling through the air?  Oh god yes it must be because there is suddenly a delicious warmth that envelops my left breast and I look down and oh god it's Buffy's mouth—

"Oh God…"

The world shifts up to down and side to side and she's pushed me—hard—onto the bed, onto my back, and she crawls onto me.  Her legs press into mine as she yanks my arms above my head, and gravity takes a hold of her, her body sinking further into mine until I'm convinced there isn't a breath's worth of air between us.  But her weight is welcome and I grab at her, trying to pull more of her body into mine.

We're sloppy with one another, groping and tonguing as if we were teenage boys racing to get to the finish line, which is nice, but I want more—so so soso much more—and my legs spread on account of their own and I want her so bad, like I've only ever wanted one person, on one night when the powers of possession were aligned in my favor.

A-An-Ange—I refuse to think of him.  This night, this feeling, this goddamn favor is supposed to make me forget.  Forget forget forget.  He isn't here, isn't watching over me, or for that matter even wondering where the hell I am because I fucked C—

"Oh!"

Hands, hands, Buffy's hands over my—where are my pants?  Oh god who fucking cares.

"Yes…"

My eyes shut tightly and briefly, hard and quick blinks against the ugly white plaster of Buffy's ceiling as she enters me without caution, one finger and then another.  The pace is harsh and fast and very fucking good and is she using the same hand that laid so close to my own earlier at Pebblemeat Dallas or the other?

_(You never had a childhood, or a family or friends or anything that's real, and if this is the end, I want you to have something that is.)_

I was wrong, so very, very wrong for what I did and what I'm doing and what I fucking _want_ to do but oh god don't everever stop…

Her mouth is on me again, kissing and licking a wet path from my lips down to my neck down to my collarbone and then oh yes—

"Right there."

My hand comes up and I steady her head at my breast, her lips and tongue and oh my god her fucking teeth torturing the nipple.  I cry out in almost-pain-but-mostly pleasure when she bites down on me and, oh yeah, that's gonna leave a mark.

I buck against her, begging more of her into me.  I want to be filled to the brim like a goddamn jelly doughnut and I want it harder and faster and I want to never close my eyes again because every time I do all I see is Connor, grunting above me, and Angel in the window, tears streaming down his face or is that the rain?  Was it raining that day?

Buffy's fingers bring me back to the present, still working their magic, but then there's her thumb, working some sort of extra-magic that has my toes curling, rumpling her already rumpled sheets.

I hear her hiss and I suddenly realize the damage my fingernails are inflicting on her shoulder blades, but I only dig harder when my entire world begins to spin and oh god oh god I'm out of control—no solid ground beneath my feet or identifiable marker of reality—it's all spinning spinning spinning so fast and in the wrong fucking direction because there's Angel, staring at me with nothing but hatred in his eyes.

I cry out some unrecognizable word or phrase—half "Oh God!" half "Buffy!"—as an orgasm the size of Brazil floods my senses with pure, lustful pleasure.  The image of Angel is replaced with white blankness and oh my god is it possible to go blind from an orgasm?

I sigh with relief when the white plaster and ceiling fan in Buffy's room return to focus along with Buffy herself, hovering above me.  The arrogance I expected to see on her face is not there, and instead she looks at me seriously, almost concerned—no, very concerned.

"Did I hurt you?" she asks, sweeping a lock of hair out of my eyes.

Hurt me?  _Hurt_ me?  How could someone who just gave me the best orgasm of my life actually think that they had hurt me?

"What are you—" I begin to ask, and then stop when she holds up her index finger for me to see, the tip of it damp with what I know to be tears.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, caressing my cheek with the back of her hand.  "I'm so sorry I couldn't- couldn't fix you."

Her voice is so soft, so absolutely apologetic that I hardly believe it has come from Buffy Summers, and it makes me feel irrationally angry all of the sudden.  Angry at her for her unexpected turn to gentleness, angry at Connor for being a memory I can't forget, angry at Angel for being angry with me, and angry at myself for far too many reasons to ever try to name.

"I never asked you to fix me," I say, not harsh but never tender.  I stiffen under her, tighten my muscles until they threaten to cramp, and murmur, "Get off of me."

She immediately does so, and I relish the rush of cold air that collides with my skin where Buffy had been, a much-deserved torment.  She stands beside the bed where I still lay, unmoved, legs still spread and arms limp at my side.  She nods, a look of hurt claiming her features at my refusal to be comforted.  I want to reach back out to her, take that hand into mine, and tell her that it's not her.  It's me.  I don't deserve your comfort, I want to say.  I want to wipe away her pain—pain that _I_ put there—with a few words and a gentle touch.  It would be so simple.

And maybe that's it.  Maybe it's just too simple.  Nothing can be solved with just a word, or the feel of skin on skin.  I know that now, and perhaps that's why I only watch her go, her soft goodbye lingering in the air with the heady spice of recent sex.  She leaves me to gather my clothes and show myself out and back to Los Angeles.

I lay there a little while longer, staring at the ceiling fan and trying to follow its blades with my eyes but it's too fast and I can't keep up and the spinning is starting to hurt my head.  I close my eyes.  And see Angel.  He looks at me not angrily, but so very, very sadly.  As though the only truth left in his life has been proven a lie, and all he's left with is a new perspective on old memories.

The now-soiled sheets of Buffy's bed surround me and leave me feeling dirty.  I want to leave.  I want to go home and lie beside Angel and fall asleep in his arms.  I want to touch him and have his touch be the one that brings me to bliss.  But mostly I want him to look me in the eye when we speak.  I want him to be able to look at me without remembering how I looked, tangled in dirty sheets and his son.

I just want to tell everyone how sorry I am.  I'm so, so selfish and so, so sorry, Angel, Buffy, everyone.  I want them to know and I want them to forgive and I want everything to go back to the way it was.  I want Angel back.

I want, I want, I want without any merit, because my haircut looks better on Buffy and because the world is ending and because I didn't mean to fuck everything up.

Because I'm selfish.

I'm sinking, and I can feel it.  Can hear the pressure building and the bees buzzing all around.  Buffy told me to keep swimming, but I can't feel my arms to guide me, or my legs to propel me towards the surface.

I'm sinking, and Buffy can't save me.  No one can.

Sunken Daisies


End file.
